Despite a national strategy to reduce road deaths in Australia, the number of people killed in crashes each year has barely improved. Picture: Lannon Harley

News

The shame behind the number 1226

by Shannon Molloy

7th Dec 2018 6:57 PM

AS YOU read this sentence, pause to notice the tiny fraction of time it takes to blink your eyes.

In that same split second, a life can be changed forever, completely and irreversibly destroyed, or ended altogether in a serious road accident.

As the busy Christmas holiday period approaches, the risk of death and injury significantly increases and you too could become part of the shocking statistics.

Starting today, news.com.au is kicking off A Split Second - a road safety campaign to share the human costs of our mammoth road toll.

Last year, 1226 Australians were killed in vehicle crashes while 35,000 people were hospitalised with non-fatal injuries.

Over coming weeks, you will meet some of the faces behind those horror statistics - a father who saw his young daughter's final moments, a farmer who can't forget the smell of his burning flesh, a woman traumatised by the crash that seriously injured her and her two-year-old child, and others.

That definitely includes applying make-up, with 5 per cent of motorists admitted they had done, or reading a book - an activity that 2 per cent of drivers fessed up to.

LONG ROAD TO CHANGE

The National Road Strategy is a multi-pronged approached to reducing deaths and injuries that occur as a result of vehicle crashes.

It has set an ambitious target of reducing the yearly number of road deaths by 30 per cent by 2020.

However, overall fatality reductions have been well below the projected targets for crashes and there have been sharp increases in incidents involving heavy vehicles, among older drivers and motorbike riders, and on remote roads.

There has also been an 80 per cent increase in cyclist deaths on roads in the past 12 months.
And during the busy summer holiday period last year, there were a staggering 127 deaths on Australian roads. That marked a 25 per cent increase on the five-year December average.

The Automotive Association is a vocal critic of the national strategy and its slow progress, saying the current approach is "uncoordinated and disorganised".

"Since the road safety strategy began, there has been a 9.7 per cent decline in the 12-month road toll, which is far below the rate required to achieve the 2020 target," it said in a report.